Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
